All Together

We had the the whole family together for Christmas this year! It was just for one night, but we fit in a family photo followed by the smorgasboard called 'The Roof' (yummy) and walked off some of those chocolate mousse calories at Temple Square. It was great to see everybody! I miss you already!

(top: Gregg, Camille, Bob, Lynn, Stella, Tara, Chris, Presley

bottom: Brad, Amber, Becka, Lincoln, Eric, Krista, Matt)

Gingerbread

My mom was in town this week visiting. It was fun to have her around for a whole week. I had a bunch of leftovers from our big young women's activity, so mom and I spent a couple of hours one afternoon decorating gingerbread houses. I have never made a gingerbread house out of real gingerbread before (I always just used graham crackers...). Anyway,
I think they turned out darn cute!

Mom's House: (she only let me photograph the front)

My House:

p.s. the recipe we used for the gingerbread was great! I didn't have leavening or eggs in it so the pieces didn't 'poof' up while baking, so the pieces fit together really good

Trading up

From an earlier post you can see that Matt gave me quite the Christmas present last year. Unfortunately, it has just sat around for the entire year since it was given to me. Not that I didn't think it was a really cool present or anything, it just needed a lot of work. It had the potential of serious greatness, but alas Matt has had zero time to put any effort towards it's future greatness. And Matt being Matt and me being me, we decided we should trade in. Matt wanted more space in the garage and I wanted something I could enjoy now (as opposed to many years from now when Matt might finally (yeah right) have some time to give it some love). I love Matt and think he's the greatest husband imaginable. Anyway, here's the ghia upgrade...




Awesome huh!!! Thanks to a struggling economy and its previous owner's desperation to sell because an upcoming move to smaller digs, we scored this beauty (in unimaginable perfection) at an amazing deal. Basically a straight up trade for the car, what great fortune! So, I now have a beautiful piece of furniture in my 'twirling' room that has been empty since we moved in. It's a 5'3" Yamaha baby grand, not a scratch on it either. I'm now it's third owner. It will live a long happy life here in our home. Now I just need to see if I can remember how to play :) I wonder what I'll get this year for Christmas... Keep those awesome Christmas gifts coming honey! I love you!

The End...

I'm finished with ALL of the local classes Wilton has to offer. Four months of sugary goodness! My goal now is to make one cake a month... We'll see how that goes. I already have a few ideas for a Christmas cake (and yes, Camille, I'll make it while I'm in UT). Anyway, here's a shot of my last Wilton cake...


I can't wait to eat it! It's lemon cake with a raspberry cream cheese filling, yummy!!!

Give Thanks

First of all, I just wanted to thank all of my friends and family! You guys are great!!! I've had some rough times this year and am SO thankful for all of your love and support. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow!

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Matt's family. It's so nice to live close to them. I miss my family terribly, but I am greatful to have his whole family nearby.


Sylvia out-did herself on the food, it was all terrific! I must say that one of my favorites is her concoction of pretzels, cream cheese and strawberry jello, yummy! And of course, the entire reason for thanksgiving, mashed potatoes!!!! (Hmmm, I'm getting hungry again, do we still have left overs?????)


Of course, boys will be boys, and here they are all rocking out! I think Patrick has the best 'rock stance', but Will was awesome, he wasn't actually playing, but he was hitting the drums on the right beat! Future rock star?????


And finally here's a quick pic of Audrey. She's so cute! Unfortunately, there was an emergency and she had to be rushed to the hospital after dinner. After careful observation and monitoring she was release to go home. She had a visit with her doctor the next day and everything apprears to be normal and healthy. She gave us all quite a scare, but we are thankful for quick response, close hospitals, good doctors and priesthood blessings! Hopefully that was the last HHD (that would be Hymas Holiday Disasters, last Christmas Will was taken to the hospital).

(This photo was taken before dinner). We are all hoping for a safe, healthy and peaceful Christmas season. Cue the Christmas music!

Thanksgiving Turkey

Here's the Thanksgiving turkey we partook of yesterday...



Good looking guy huh?!? Although he lived a short life it was a good one. Matt named him Terrance and he took me between 10 and 12 hours to create, so if you wonder why cakes cost so much, that's why. I'll give you more details on his creation if you want, but all I have to say is that tail threw me for a loop, but in the end it turned out great thanks to our great friend Peter's Ultra dipping chocolate (so glad I picked up some while I was in UT)!

Here's a photo of the slaughter... he was delicious, spice cake with cranberry-orange filling, buttercream icing and hot cocoa flavored fondant (which was way better than even the plain marshmallow fondant, which is pretty good in and of itself...).

And here's the mess he created in my kitchen!

I hope you all had a safe and delicious Turkey Day! I'll post more on our eventful T-day on another post.

Twilight

I saw it!!! I went yesterday with Sylvia and Clair to see the movie. There were parts I liked and parts I didn't like, but I can't wait to see it again! I won't say much except that there are quite a few liberties taken with the story and several important parts missing and others added... I liked the book better, but it was still entertaining and fun to see the characters brought to life.

A New....

Car! Well, I guess it's a truck. Yesterday we bought our first ever brand new car (from the dealer)! Very crazy and extremely out of character for us (1, it's a chevy, and 2, it's new!). Matt found this crazy good deal on a very specific model truck and the local dealer just happened to have one left (it took matt a while to get them to accept the online offer on this truck). The truck's sticker price was 20k, but Matts internet deal got us the truck for 12k! I've never owned a brand new car (Matt has, but not me) and it feels kind a weird. It's also weird that Matt will be driving a "normal" vehicle (I don't think I need to elaborate here...). I guess I feel better about the purchase because there were used trucks on the lot (same model just an earlier year) whose sticker was higher than the price we paid for the new one. I must say that I didn't enjoy the whole "dealer" experience, something about it just felt slimey. Anyway, here are some photos of what it looks like now, and a couple crazy ideas Matt has for it :) (you didn't really think he'd keep it normal for long, did you???)

Gum Paste Flowers

This stuff really is like working with bubble gum, if your hands get too hot... Here are some of the flowers I made in class last night. There is only 1 more class left! I'm really going to miss the classes and the girls, but we'll just have to get together and teach ourselves more techniques. This really has been a great experience.

Snow?!?!?

I was pretty sure we didn't live in UT any more?!?!? But the freezing temps this week (days barely getting to 40 and the nights in the teens!) followed by the SNOW this morning have me thinking otherwise. Hmmmm...

Baby Audrey

Matt's sister just had her 2nd child last week. Everyone is excited that she is here, and came without the horrible trauma that surrounded her first birthing experience! We were able to visit them at the hospital yesterday and bring them some relief from the dreaded hospital food. Mom and baby are doing great. They are planning on leaving the hospital a whole 2 days early for a c-section patient! Here's a few quick pics... (we're planning on a "real" photo shoot on monday)

Even more...

I've just started the last Wilton cake decorating course. This time we'll be focusing more on fondant and making gum paste flowers and other fancy things. Here is my first attempt at a rose made out of fondant... (I think it turned out pretty good, and I must say that I even caused jealous feelings to arise in our class ocd/perfectionist, Sarah :)


p.s. This fondant rose is WAY easier than piping them from buttercream or royal icing!!!

Cute

My mom is the best! Look what I found at my front door just the other day...

I love it mom! Thanks!! I'll be so stylin with my new VB bag.

Colorful Commute

Ummm... yes, I did take these picture while driving. Very dangerous, don't do it. But look at all the colors! It's beautiful here!

Halloween cake!

You can't have Halloween without a special sweet treat! Here was my contribution to the spooky festivities! (yes, I gave fondant another try, it was easier the second time especially with some helpful tips from cake decorating teacher extraordinaire, Lisa Landis!!!). The cake was a pumpkin with a cream cheese and cool whip filling, two tiered stacked cake. Yummy!!!

Halloween!

Matt was out of town on Halloween (again!! truthfully, I don't think we've ever spent a Halloween together since we've been married???). So, I spent the afternoon and evening with Matt's family. We got Will dressed in his pirate costume and headed outside. Sylvia and I passed out candy while Kristin and Patrick took Will trick-or-treating. After the candy was gone we ordered pizza from one of my NC favorites, Bellicino's Pizza. It was fantastic! I'd been craving a good pizza for a while now. After stuffing our faces we watched Matt's race, and they got a 6th place finish!!! Good job!!

To knit or knot to knit

While Lisa was here she taught me some basics of knitting! Here's what I've done so far. I know this will be a huge project, but sometime in my life I'd like to knit Christmas stockings!!! My Grandma Udy made us stockings when we were kids, but my mom won't give them to us, because she says they are hers not ours (hmmm, don't they have names on them????). Maybe someday I can tackle this "life goal".

Lisa's Visit!

My very best friend, Lisa, came for a visit! It was so nice to have her here and play tour guide of my new town/state. We did lots of fun things. We went shopping (window shopping, I don't thing either of us bought anything), ate lots of yummy food (including a pop over the border to SC to get some Krystal's (and because Lisa had never been to SC)), watched a couple of good movies and had a great time! Here are some photos of the highlights!




I almost forgot about the fabulous chocolate cake with marshmallow filling we made! Lisa wanted to bake and decorate a cake using my new skills and tools. She did a great job!!! And it was super yummy!


Thanks for the visit Lisa!!! I hope you can come back again soon!!!

I hope dreams come true!

At church today a friend came up to me and told me that she had a dream about me the other night. In her dream I had twin girls!!! In the dream she was trying to hold the girls for me, but couldn't quite figure out how to hold 2 babies at once. This would be a great dream to come true!!! Thanks Alicia!

The Price We Pay

That's right friends!!! $2.45 a gallon!!!! Kristin said that Patrick found it for $2.19 in SC somewhere!!!! At least the economy crisis is causing gas prices to fall.

***UPDATE***

I was driving to/from church and I saw that gas at my favorite gas station was $2.35 and then I saw another station that had gas for $2.33. YAY!!!